As we work to bring even more value to our audience, we’ve made important changes for those who receive Ad Age with our compliments. As of November 15, 2016 we will no longer be offering full digital access to AdAge.com. However, we will continue to send you our industry-leading print issues focused on providing you with what you need to know to succeed.

If you’d like to continue your unlimited access to AdAge.com, we invite you to become a paid subscriber. Get the news, insights and tools that help you stay on top of what’s next.

Gettin' Down With Gelman

By Tk Published on December 01, 2004.

Alexander Gelman, head of Design Machine and design director at Charlex, had an unusual bash thrown in his honor last month in New York, as design met commerce in a distinctly party-hearty atmosphere. The event was hosted by Japan's Idea Magazine, whose recent issue #304 featured a Special Project section devoted to, and designed, by Gelman. The party, at downtown fashion boutique Memes, featured Gelman-themed and

-designed merchandise for the occasion, including skateboards and T-shirts flaunting various iterations of his name and face as a logo. In addition, in a Gelman-conceived people's art happening, the usual wall of hats in the store was replaced by plain orange hats and black markers, so partygoers could draw on them-these graffiti lids are also for sale. Better yet, though she's not for sale, there was also a topless bartender, and "I stenciled my name in gold on her chest," says Gelman somewhat sheepishly. "Everyone was talking about that, of course." Unfortunately, a good picture of this body-art flourish, worthy of Goldfinger, wasn't available at press time.

And at the afterparty-what good party doesn't have an afterparty?-at a club called Luke and Leroy, admission required a 3-D Gelman-face button. As for the Idea project (seen here in the three images at top), it's a retrospective of Gelman's work, but with a twist; "It was done as a sort of compilation/remix, in which all the work was laid out basically as a texture," he explains. "Everything was printed with different colors and inks-fluorescents, metallics-and different papers, all specifically for this issue. It's intended as grids and sequences designed to create a rich visual flow." Which is why the captions ID'ing the work are microscopic: "They aren't important. So often, designers and art directors show work and talk about the story behind it and go on about the concepts-but this is just about the work as fine art."